


a better storyteller

by stellulam



Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-24
Updated: 2016-10-24
Packaged: 2018-08-24 09:00:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8366260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stellulam/pseuds/stellulam
Summary: The 501st's shiniest new additions give themselves appropriate paint jobs.





	

**Author's Note:**

> so I'm celebrating finally starting to figure out how this site works by encouraging everyone to have feelings about dominoes with me. enjoy!

In the aftermath of the assault on the Rishi outpost, Fives felt rattled and restless. If he had thought there was any basis for believing in such things, he'd be tempted to call it channeling his lost batchmates. Hevy always wanted to be going headfirst into something, Cutup couldn't sit still. Fives wasn't a perfectly patient person himself, just wasn't as bad at some of them. But he didn't believe in things like that, so he couldn't chalk it up to that, and the best he could do was blaming it on getting used to a new room (on a flagship, no less!) and paint fumes. 

While the official welcome to the _Resolute_ came from the officers on board, clone and Jedi alike, the unofficial one was from the brothers excited for shinies, quickly producing paint and brushes for the pair of new troopers to give their armour some identifying blue. It was a way of fitting in with the five-hundred-first just as much as it was a demonstration of individuality. Plain old white didn't give you a battalion to align yourself with and somehow, in Captain Rex's eyes, Fives and Echo had earned a place, had earned the blue. 

It was an unnecessarily nice gesture that had the captain sticking them alone in what had been an unoccupied barracks room, rather than splitting them up. They would be worked into the next room shuffle, or else the room's other four bunks filled the next time the ship was _meant_ to pick up new troopers, but for now, it was just Fives on the floor painting a blotted blue giant eel over the top of his helmet while Echo worked away at something on his top bunk. There was no need, of course, for Echo to claim the bed directly above the one Fives had immediately called dibs on, but there was reassurance in closeness and Fives wasn't going to complain. Hevy might have complained, or else bothered Echo enough that the quieter clone repositioned across the room, but Fives had a sickening feeling that the room was going to feel empty enough as it was. Keeping Echo close would be good. 

Fives couldn't remember ever _not_ sleeping with brothers in listening distance. Privacy wasn't a thing on Kamino and clones were meant to seamlessly work together anyway. They were designed to be bland little units and it was only the messy batches like Domino Squad that had so much internal conflict that they were as likely to shoot one another as an enemy. Even then, the closest they'd ever really gotten to getting away from one another was what little bit of time was available to interact with other cadets or — as Fives had seen more than once — bullying Echo into being quiet so they could all go through the motions of whatever they had to do without any actual interaction happening. 

That probably wasn't the mark of a great squad. But then again, Fives had spent a significant chunk of time in denial about just how fractured they were.

An obnoxiously polite throat clearing came from the top bunk and Fives craned his neck to look up, helmet in hand and almost finished. Echo was leaning partway off the bunk, a piece of transferable filmsi in one hand, stuck out for Fives to see. It was meant to be a wearable memorial, that much was obvious: the basic design was something that other soldiers flaunted when they had earned it or had someone worth fighting for.

"What do you think?" Echo asked, face scrunching a little, voice pinched with self-doubt because Fives didn't have anything to say right from the get-go. "The lettering is a bit much, isn't it? Maybe just the cannon—"

"Keep it," Fives interjected quickly, shaking his head. "You know he'd want his name somewhere brothers could see, so you can tell them about how he probably saved our homeworld."

Echo leaned a little further, to look at the image from the same side that Fives was, but without moving it. If he contorted himself much further, Fives worried there'd be a pile on the floor. "Yeah, Hevy'd like that."

"Any chance of you making a second?"

This time Echo dipped so low off the side of the bed that Fives shifted instinctively to try to stretch out under him, before his brother righted himself, setting down the first filmsi for a second identical one. 

"Always prepared, huh, Echo?"

"It was easier to make them both simultaneously, to be honest." Echo shrugged until his cheeks disappeared behind his shoulders from Fives's angle, but Fives had a feeling that the off-hand praise had done the other clone a bit of good. "Besides, Hevy liked you a lot more. He'd rather you told his story if anyone had to."

"He liked you plenty," Fives argued, shifting in how he sat to better watch Echo without giving up his bit of hard deck floor. Now that Echo seemed less likely to fall off his bunk, Fives could settle his back against the opposite one, head tilting back on the unused mattress. "And you're a better storyteller. For him— and Droidbait and Cutup, too."

"I'm better at recounting regulations," Echo tried to correct, but Fives shook his head.

"You'll be better at recounting just how glorious that explosion was, when the time comes."

"It was a pretty big bang..."

"And it'll be how you show off Hevy to the shinies. When we're _not_ the shinies, I mean," Fives added, finding it easy to slip into the slang that the clones away from Kamino used. Excepting their adventures with Captain Rex and Commander Cody, Fives' big experience with clones who had really seen action was just shower gossip and a meal hall visit that had been too many introductions and Echo looking progressively more and more like he was just wilting on the bench beside Fives. Clones weren't social so much as they were codependent and stuck together whether they wanted to be or not. Fives had gotten along as well with his batchmates as any clone could hope to, but he was aware that they'd never been the best of brothers to Echo and sometimes it showed in Echo's quiet reluctance. "Drop that down for me, would ya?"

The sheet fluttered down just out of range of his fingertips and Fives snatched it up without another comment, deferring to quiet reverence as he rubbed the transfer onto his shoulder piece, holding the armour out to admire it at arm's length when he was done, vaguely aware that Echo was doing something similar above him. The repeating assault cannon was prominent, easy to identify; 'for Hevy' left nothing to the imagination in terms of dedication. He was as weirdly proud of Echo for making it as he was for his fallen brothers and their service. 

"The giant eel isn't a very exciting way to go," Echo said, voice quiet, as Fives brought his piece in close for polish and sealant. "Cutup would be disappointed."

He would have been, but Echo sounded like he was kicking himself, so Fives knew he couldn't agree. 

"Nah. Sneaking around a hazardous moon, evading enemy detection?" Fives shook his head. "We weren't supposed to leave the listening post anyway, were we?"

"Because of the eel."

" _But_ he wouldn't have even considered staying behind to be killed by those droids. I'd say that's a fine way to go."

Whether or not it helped, Echo didn't argue, both of them applying finishing touches to armour before moving to lay it out. Fives snatched the still-white helmet from Echo's hands as he moved to put it with the rest of his kit, holding it up and squinting.

"You missed your bucket."

"I couldn't think of anything worth painting."

"But you have to put _something_ ," Fives insisted, tucking it momentarily under his arm as he grabbed for the last of the unused blue paint and held it out to Echo. "How else am I going to find you?"

"We've got comms and identifiers in our helmets, Fives."

"And when those get jammed?"

"You won't need to worry about finding me if your HUD isn't working." 

"Stop being contrary, Echo!" In any worst case scenario, Fives was certain that Echo would be a priority. They knew how to work together, had figured out just how many things Echo had to parrot and how snappish Fives could get with just telling him to shut up and shoot. Missing the rest of Domino Squad would take some getting used to, but a familiar brother was the best kind of brother. He held the helmet out in both hands, imploring Echo to decorate it as he added, "Just slap what instinct tells you to on there."

Fives wasn't sure what he was expecting, but the two orderly blue lines were, at least in retrospect, a keen representation of the trooper they would be representing. Unique, but not flashy. Fives had them committed to memory before he had Echo's helmet set to dry on his chest piece. 

"If you _stuck_ to formation, you wouldn't have to worry about finding me," Echo said, picking up where he left off, voice dry, and Fives immediately assumed he was going to get a lecture he didn't want on who knew what. He bristled, inhaling to tell Echo to _stuff it_ for now, because he wasn't interested, only to deflate when he noticed the little smile Echo was wearing. Echo was teasing him, he realized, and Fives was an easy target. "Because I'll be right beside you."


End file.
